View from a Kayak

I spent the morning kayaking around the islands and channels of Aransas and Redfish bays dodging speeding boats carrying fishermen and fighting a wind gusting 15-20 miles per hour out of the southeast. I launched my kayak at the public boat ramp. On the return trip, I had to avoid pickup trucks with trailers backing down the ramp to load their boats. I lifted my kayak onto the sidewalk next to the ramp and a man called out “Hey, Mr. Kayak, how was it out there?” “Windy” I replied. He was small and slim, with a sunburned face, and white hair sticking out beneath a tattered baseball cap. “The water’s warmed up; it must be in the 60s” I continued. He was sitting at a picnic table next to the ramp. There were several fillet knives laid out in front of him and he was sharpening one on a rectangular stone. It was hard to tell how old he was; his weathered face added at least a decade to his age.

Channel leading to Aransas Bay from Little Bay

“How’s the fishing?” I asked. “Not very good. We haven’t had a low tide in a week.” He proceeded to tell me that the wind, which had been blowing strong all week, pushed water into the shallow bays and kept it there. He said the fishermen needed a low tide so the fish would move off the flats and concentrate in the deeper channels. As a pickup truck hauled a skiff with a large outboard motor up the ramp, the old man left his table and walked over to the boat. He asked if they wanted their fish cleaned, but they hadn’t caught anything worth keeping. As I loaded my kayak on the truck, I watched him meet every boat that came in with the same question. No one had any fish for him to clean.

Shrimpboat, Aransas Pass

Shrimpboat and crewboat at Aransas Pass

I was surprised to learn that the phase of the moon has little to do with tide height in the shallow bays of the Coastal Bend. Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, the tidal range is about three feet; it’s less than half that in the outer (primary) bays and less than a quarter of that in the inner (secondary) bays. As fronts from the north and west approach the coast, offshore winds from the south-southeast intensify pushing water in the shallow bays up against the inland shore and holding it there. As the front moves offshore, winds from the north increase and push water in the shallow bays up against the opposite shore.

Empty barges tied to dolphins near the launch ramp at Aransas Pass

The Texas coastline from Louisiana to the Mexican border is 370 miles long and, except for two areas near Louisiana, barrier islands and peninsulas separate the estuaries and bays from the Gulf of Mexico. The estuaries extend up to 30 miles inland and they differ from the classical definition of estuaries*. In Texas, the connection of bays and estuaries with the Gulf is restricted to a few tidal channels that breach the barrier islands. The estuaries are divided into primary and secondary basins. Waters from the Gulf flow into the primary and secondary basins, but the primary basins rarely receive land runoff directly from major rivers (link).

Empty barges tied to dolphins near the launch ramp at Aransas Pass

Rainfall, and surface runoff as a percent of rainfall, decreases significantly from east to west in Texas. Streams are prone to flooding and stream flow is variable from year-to-year. Salinities in the bays increases from less than 20 parts per thousand in Galveston Bay in the east to over 30 parts per thousand in Laguna Madre in the west. Bays near Galveston have higher freshwater inflows, greater water exchange with the Gulf of Mexico and lower salinities. Laguna Madre has lower freshwater inflows, less exchange with the sea and higher salinities (link).

Black mangroves on a slough in Aransas Bay

The bays and estuaries of the Aransas Bay complex offer many opportunities for exploration by kayak. They range from the upscale, suburban Little Bay to the working harbors of Fulton and Aransas Pass, to the modestly developed Copano Bay and undeveloped St. Charles Bay. The Aransas Bay complex covers about 112,000 acres and is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by San Jose Island. The average depth of Aransas Bay is eight feet; Aransas Channel is dredged to 12 feet. Most of the bottom is mud, sand and shell, and there are 840 acres of oyster reefs and 8,000 acres of seagrasses in the system. Major water exchange with the Gulf occurs through Aransas Pass (link).

Derelict crab pot in Aransas Bay

I paddled the sloughs of the Lighthouse Trail between mangrove-covered islands and sandbars. Heading south, I crossed the Aransas Channel careful to avoid recreational fishermen speeding between the launch ramp and their fishing grounds and headed into Redfish Bay. Ship traffic transiting the channel has right-of-way over kayaks crossing the channel. The State Scientific Area in Redfish Bay protects seagrasses from being uprooted or destroyed. All five of the seagrass species found in Texas occur in Redfish Bay creating 14,000 acres of high-quality nursery and forage habitat for fish, shrimp, crabs and other species (link).

Female blue crab

Blue crab populations in Texas have declined significantly in the last several decades. Landings declined from a high of 11.9 million pounds in 1987, to 4.7 million pounds in 2000, to 2.2 million pounds in 2014 (the historic average is 6 million pounds). The primary reasons for the declines are: reduced freshwater inflows to estuaries (due to droughts and increased upstream usage); over-harvesting by commercial fishermen; and loss of coastal habitats (marshes, wetlands, seagrass beds) to development (link).

Seawall at Aransas Pass

Shipyard at Aransas Pass

Billboard near the launch ramp at Aransas Pass

The first official paddling trail in Texas was established by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in 1999 in the mangrove estuaries, sloughs and seagrass beds between Aransas Pass and Port Aransas. The Lighthouse Lakes Trail consists of four loops that range from one mile to seven miles long (link). The Parks and Wildlife Department started the Texas Paddling Trail program to provide more recreational access to shallow waters along the coast that are often inaccessible to motorized boats. Each trail has put-in and take-out access sites, which are signed along the highways. The department provides maps and GPS coordinates on their website. Currently there are seven coastal trails (link).

Oil-spill clean-up barge pre-positioned at Aransas Pass

I launched my kayak in Little Bay about 200 feet from the house we rented. I have a lightweight aluminum cart with two wheels to which I strapped my kayak and walked it down the street to the bay. Little Bay is just that – little; I could paddle end-to-end in 20 minutes. The bay is ringed with residential development, small businesses and marinas full of expensive boats. The bay averages less than three feet deep and contains two small, bird-sanctuary islands. 

Channel into Little Bay from Aransas Bay

Pier in Little Bay

Great blue herons on bird-sanctuary island in Little Bay

White pelicans and redheads in Little Bay

I passed the house below in a narrow channel on my return to Little Bay from Aransas Bay. A great blue heron stood amid nautical paraphernalia and I reached for my camera. The current in the channel carried me past the house after one or two shots, so I turned around and paddled back several times. A woman came out onto the porch. "Can I help you?" she asked. "No, I'm taking pictures of your pet heron" I replied. "He comes here every day" she said. We talked for 15 minutes while I held my position in the current. They had caught a 30-pound black drum on the pole mounted on the porch rail the day before. The house, which is half of a duplex, was a motel in the 1970s. She and her husband have lived there for eight years. I told her that we were Winter Texans. She asked where we lived and I said out of a truck. "The house next door is for sale if you're interested. It's a good price" The rainbow-colored sign below the porch caught my eye; it says: "The weather is here, wish you were beautiful."

House on Little Bay

The channel to Aransas Bay from Little Bay passes under the bridge to Key Allegro

Near the opposite ends of the Little Bay are navigation channels leading to Aransas Bay. I made several trips out into Aransas Bay, which is 20 miles long and six miles wide, when conditions were favorable. A couple times, the long fetch of winds from the south created three-foot wind waves with periods of a few seconds; they swamped my sit-on-top kayak and made paddling difficult. On one windy day, I sought temporary shelter in Fulton Harbor after paddling into the wind for over an hour. It's a modern working harbor a mile north of Little Bay. The contrast between industries that service recreational fishermen and their boats, and commercial fishermen and their boats is striking. 

Sportfishers docked in Fulton Harbor

Sportfishers in a shipyard in Fulton Harbor

Shrimp boats tied to the breakwater in Fulton Harbor

Shrimp boats at a dock in Fulton Harbor

I would venture out into Aransas Bay when the wind and seas were calm. One day, I visited a well field leased by Lamar Oil & Gas, Inc. a mile offshore. There are nine or ten gas wells in the field and a larger structure, probably a gas transmission or gathering platform, among the wells (link). 

Marker light approaching Lamar Oil & Gas, Inc. well field in Aransas Bay

Well and platform in Aransas Bay

I saw several tugs pushing double barges on the other side of Aransas Bay, which were transiting a section of the 3,000-mile long Intracoastal Waterway that runs the length of the bay. One large crew boat passing close to the oil/gas field was courteous enough to reduce its speed so its wake wouldn’t swamp me as it passed by.

Osprey and double-crested cormorant on a gas well in Aransas Bay

Copano Bay is a large, shallow, secondary bay off Aransas Bay. You can walk halfway across it on a low tide. Shoreline development ranges from a large, enclosed commercial shrimp farm visible for miles, to high end homes on Cape Velero, to rural farms. The bottom is clays and silt deposited by surrounding rivers, and the shore is bounded by low-lying marshlands dissected by narrow drainage channels. The influx of fine sediments and nutrients can deplete oxygen in the bay, which is generally a short-term impact. The long-term benefits of these inflows comprise increased productivity and health of the ecosystem (link). 

Old and new causeways between the Lamar Peninsula and Bayside

Under the new causeway

Brown pelican at rest

The pilings can be a trap for birds tangled in fishing line

Brown pelicans and olivaceous cormorants on pilings of the old causeway

Parts of the shoreline are undeveloped marshes. The marshes with their emergent vegetation are nurseries for the larvae and juveniles of many species, and feeding and nesting habitat for one-third of all threatened and endangered animals. The marshes export nutrients to the bay, improve the quality of runoff and buffer the land against storms (link).

Channel into the marsh in Copano Bay

Olivaceous cormorants with Cape Velero in the background

St. Charles Bay was the least developed of the bays that I explored by kayak. This is where I went when I wanted peace and quiet. I rarely saw fishing boats or kayakers in the bay. When we first arrived in Rockport, duck hunting season was open and I occasionally saw duck hunters in the blinds in the bay (actually I saw their skiffs moored near the blinds). I gave them a wide berth. St. Charles Bay is bordered on both sides by Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, well known as the winter home of whooping cranes.

Oyster reef at the entrance to St. Charles Bay

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge sign in St. Charles Bay

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge shoreline

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge shoreline

One day I paddled several miles up St. Charles Bay assisted by a steady breeze at my back. The wind continued to build throughout the morning and so did the wind waves. When I turned around to paddle into the swell, I took water over the bow. I paddled within a mile of where I had left my truck and decided to take a break and explore a "lake" that I had seen on Google Earth. The entrance channel was narrow and winding; you wouldn't know there was a lake at the end of it sitting in a kayak. I passed an old fence line bereft of its barbed wire and entered the lake. I got out of the boat on a high spot on the shore to empty the water. The little blue crab in the picture below was in the cockpit and ready to defend himself. He must have washed into the boat in one of the waves.

Fence line, St. Charles Bay

Lake off St. Charles Bay

Blue crab in the cockpit of my kayak

We made several trips to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to see whooping cranes and we weren’t disappointed, except that most of the sightings were birds in the distance or flying overhead. We also looked near The Big Tree in Lamar where whoopers, sandhill cranes and whistling ducks frequented a small pond on a fenced pasture. This was a word-of-mouth spot and often there were 10-15 cars parked along the road with their occupants lined up along the fence. The closest we were was 150 feet. In my kayak, however, I could get within 30 feet, probably because I wasn’t standing and not perceived as a threat. This was also true for herons, egrets, pelicans, cormorants and terns.

Whooping cranes foraging on the shore of St. Charles Bay

Great egret

Royal terns

Double-crested cormorants on an abandoned well

The rivers that flow into the bays and estuaries of the Coastal Bend have small basins that do not extend more than 100 miles inland. Runoff is strongly influenced by conditions along the coast. During the last Ice Age, which began 50,000-60,000 years ago, sea level was 300-400 feet below where it is today as ice accumulated on the land. The estuaries and coast that we see today was exposed land that eroded as sea level fell. Rivers flowing through these valleys were 100-130 feet lower than today. About 20,000 years ago as temperatures began to rise, sea levels rose and flooded these valleys and the deeper parts began to fill with sediments. The bays, estuaries, barrier islands and peninsulas that we see today were formed within the past 2,500 years (link).

Prescribed burn on Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge allows duck hunting and fishing; most refuges do. Without access to wildlife resources, there would be little support among the fishing and hunting communities for protecting these places. It's a trade-off that we've made as a society. So we're responsible for "managing" wildlife; what we mostly manage is people's behavior (e.g., bag and size limits, open and closed areas, etc.). If the blue crab is any indication, we're not doing a good enough job. Below are some duck blinds in various stages of their lives.

Water temperatures in this part of the Coastal Bend have increased and precipitation has decreased since 1978. Along the Texas coast, there has been a trend of increasing water temperature (0.08 degrees F per year), reduced rainfall and dissolved oxygen since 1978, increasing drought stress in the bays. The Coastal Bend has experienced more frequent intense rains with longer periods of drought between them, which is consistent with the forecasts of climate change in the southeastern U.S. (link). This does not bode well for the bays and wetlands of the Coastal Bend and for the fish and wildlife that depend on them.

*An estuary is: 1) a semi-enclosed, coastal body of water, 2) with free communication to the ocean, 3) where ocean water is diluted by freshwater derived from land (link).